


But which human?

by thyandra



Category: Tokyo Ghoul, Tokyo Ghoul:re
Genre: Brainwashing, Cannibalism, Cannibalism Play, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, God Complex, Hey it's Tokyo ghoul after all, I don't know if it's medically accurate but it's in between the lines, Inferiority Complex, Insanity, Moral Ambiguity, Non-Linear Narrative, Psychological Torture, Stockholm Syndrome, implied hallucinations, ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 15:25:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6991120
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thyandra/pseuds/thyandra
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The chains tear apart your ankles, but you pay them no mind. You move in a frenzy, and your muscles stiff from captivity spasm anxiously; you have drool on your face.  The human looks at you with terror in his eyes, as though you were a beast. You laugh coarsely. Beads of saliva fall to the filthy floor, and your guttural gurgle feels like the blasphemy of all of your ideologies. You don't hear it.<br/>For an amazing and subconscious moment you don't feel second to anyone, let alone yourself. The Hunger steals that from you, too.</p><p>---</p><p>Or: that one fic that explores Takizawa's psyche and his slow descent into hell after his capture by Aogiri.<br/>Set during Eto's psychological torture.</p>
            </blockquote>





	But which human?

**Author's Note:**

> This work is a translation of my own fic you can read [here](http://www.efpfanfic.net/viewstory.php?sid=3338375&i=1). If you're fluent in Italian, I advise you just click the link and ignore this one.  
> Before you read further, please READ CAREFULLY THE WARNINGS. There's a lot of heavy stuff in here, because, you know, Eto... Missing moments of her tortures... It's that sort of content. You have been warned!

 

You're asleep, that much you can tell.

A soft buzz, barely there. Voices in the distance. Something solid against your back.

Where am I? I don't know. Liar.  _ I don't know _ .

You stretch your neck to look behind your shoulder. Daaaamn, your head hurts!

What's this place? I don't know. Another lie. Darkness envelops your flesh. What's this chill that it's freezing you to death? Hurts, hurts, hurts.

You try to open your eyes but your mind refuses to acknowledge the action. Morning. Light from the blinds. I need to go to work.  _ Nononono _ . I don't have a job anymore. No. Of course you do. And you're late on top of that, too. Uh, it's cold in here, isn't it?

You focus on your arms, since you can barely feel them anymore. It's almost as if they're not even yours anymore, oh, that's stupid. Of course they're yours, it's not like they're the joints of a doll. Ah, but it's not cold down there, how curious. Detached, they're detached from the rest of your body, light, inconsistent and soft like jam-- ah, grandma's jam, soft, sweet peach jam. Who knows if your arms taste the same now...?

A metallic squeak, an open door, someone that picks up something.

You're floating on air, your mind light and distant, half-asleep. Your weightless body basks in that feeling, wasting away everything else. Where were you, again? Ah, you're not sure, but down there below you think you can distinguish a familiar house. Those yellow walls, you could pick them blindly. What an awful taste. You shiver, realizing you've really thought that critic. If mom heard you, she would've grabbed you by the ears so harshly it would hurt. Hurt.  _ Pain _ . No. A itch in your right ear. Steps reverberating in the empty room. Nononono, she heard you, crap, she's coming to scold me, what a pain. A metallic sound, a tool picked up from the floor. Sweat down your back, and you shiver. Your ratty clothes don't keep you warm at all.

A prolonged yelp: Lokki huddles up at your feet and you smile. There's nothing to fear, it's just mom. Just mom. A head peeking from the jamb of your door, her chubby face covered in beauty cream. You hold back a snicker that would've granted you another week of penal servitude in the family shop; everything but the shop. Mom's holding a pair of pliers dripping a red substance. Lokki yelps again, at your feet, and you scratch him behind his ears, trying to calm him down. It's just mom. Blood drips on the checkerboard-patterned floor. A chill down your spine. Your head is heavy. You're sleeping. It's just mom.

You shut your eyes tightly.

You don't wake up.

Now you can feel it, that smell that permeates the air and that has nothing to do with the scent of jam.  _ Blood _ .

No. It's just a dream, you are sleeping. Sleeping, yes, that's right. The summer house with its yellow walls. Oh, how much did you hate it in those late spring afternoons, you'd almost wished that school would start sooner!

Something scrapes against the wall next to your right ear. It's Lokki. You can feel his nervousness. A nervous tic, and your lips twitch. You're just sleeping, you're aware of that.

The smell of that congealed blood mingles with that of human feces, stinging your delicate nostrils, and you suppress a grimace.  _ Nausea _ . You seal your eyes shut.  _ Painpainpain _ . You're about to puke. Lokki barks at your feet and you raise up your hand to pet him. He shows you his belly to signal he appreciates your attentions and you lower your guard. No need to worry. Your grin widens. It's just a dream, there's no need to worry. His hair is soft under your palm. Congealed blood tinges your nails black, staining Lokki's soft fur. A blink and your hands are back to normal. You must have been seeing things. Lokki is not yelping anymore. The worst is over. You sigh. What are you talking about? There was no worse, you mentally correct yourself, growing annoyed at how easily you let yourself be creeped out.  _ By what? _

You can't remember.

_ You're lying _ .

There's only bile left in your stomach, you already puked the rest. You pet Lokki again behind his ears. Your grin widens.

You've already been here. You've already dreamt all this.

You're lying.

Where did mom go?

Fear, fear, fear.

What are you so scared of, Takizawa? It's just routine, an investigation like usual.

For Heaven's sake, would you shut your mouth for once, Mado.

That weakness will be the death of you, Takizawa. Let your fear become your new strength.

S-shut up!

Humiliation tinges your cheeks of tell-tale red.

Why are you trembling, Takizawa? There's no need to worry.

Biting cold pierces your back. You know you’ve fallen asleep in an uncomfortable position last night.

_ Where is mom? _

You don't know.

_ Liar. _

It's the truth.

_ You're lying. _

Another twitch of your lips. You bite onto them until you can taste blood on your frantic tongue. It's delicious. Lokki yelps again, and he backs away from you. You call his name but he bares his teeth in a hostile snarl.

It's me, Lokki.

He keeps snarling.

It's me!

His slender body shakes with convulsions, drool on his mouth. His hair is all on end like he's facing an enemy. You're lying.

_ Me who? _

You raise your hand to your hair. Tears are already stinging your eyes.

I don't know anymore.

Lokki attacks.

Your grip on your scalp tightens. You tear a few strands while tears cloud your vision. You look at your hands. Your hair is white like death. A sob escapes from your lips, mingling with the blood of the wound you inflicted to yourself. You fall to your knees. It's just a dream.

Lokki bites your leg, but you don't feel any pain. Not physically.

You wake up with a deafening scream in your cold prison, your wrists struggling to free themselves from those chains that scrape and draw blood from your skin already full of abrasions, deaf to the prayers of your humanity, and your breaths that increase in frequency in your panic; a pair of eyes smiles with the madman's joy of an annihilator, peeking from a pile of bandages.

So ironic, the one who's falling apart is you, you would've thought, if this was another report on print paper or broadcasting news on TV.

“ Good morning, Takizawa,” greet you with honest madness the ghoul's pupils devoid of compassion. You're chilled to the bones and now you’ve remembered why.

  
  


x.

  
  


Pick a man, take away his free will and feast with his emotions. Labile, more and more labile is the boundary line of his morality.

If you are justice, why does your judgment skirt around yourself?

If you are safety, why is your name Fear?

The chains tear apart your ankles, but you pay them no mind. You move in a frenzy, and your muscles stiff from captivity spasm anxiously; you have drool on your face. You lick your lips. The human looks at you with terror in his eyes, as though you were a beast. You laugh coarsely. Beads of saliva fall to the filthy floor, and your guttural gurgle feels like the blasphemy of all of your ideologies. You don't hear it.

If you're a human being, why does the smell of fear you can distinctly sniff overpower that of any other stink of bodily fluids permeating the air?

You trash around and your chains echo your madness. You yell, you shout, you fling yourself at that man that is putting absurd ideas in your head, but your shackles keep you away from him and your slamming against the wall for the momentum of your attack doesn't sate your frustration.

Human, human, human. Is crying, the human. He hunches in himself far away from you.

You hold your head between your hands. Your nails pierce your scalp and the smell of your own blood torments you.

But  _ which _ human?

Me. Mememe. You grit your teeth so hard you feel them break and immediately regenerate. You swallow. Your dry mouth struggles to perform the action.

Female laughter. Tears on your face. You look with observant eyes the profile of your persecutor, patiently sitting in a pile of bandages that caress with lust the curves of her body. Her scent tempts your nostrils like a forbidden fruit and you think she smells of apples. Make her stop, it’s enough, please, I'll do whatever you want but make her stop makeherstopstop stop-- the forbidden apple from the Garden of Eden. Eve the temptress smiles, knowing the snake that's already moving on your skin, whispering persuasive lies. Your eyes follow in a daze her sensual and predatory movements towards the man in the corner of the room. You crave the dominance you can read in her attitude; the thought that she doesn't deem you worthy of it repels you and attracts you at the same time. You're second to no one, not even to Death.

You hold your breath. She caresses his face with a thin palm, making him raise his gaze to hers. The man trembles and you bite your lips until you can taste blood. You know that feeling. It enslaved you too.

Lokki stares at you with pitying eyes, sitting next to her. You don't return the attention, distracted by the scent of that juicy and sweet pulp. The smell of death is already dancing in the air and you inhale it to your lung's content. When did you resume breathing again?

“ I pity you,” says Lokki abruptly. You don't listen.

You observe her fingers moving on his neck, your irises  voracious. You memorize the widening of those eyes of his, full of unshed tears. You don't hear the ruckus of his severed vertebrae stealing away your sanity forever, because at the same moment something in your mind just broke completely.

“ Your will is weak,” says Lokki, and his voice sounds like yours, just more childish. You silently agree; for now.

Your salivation equates that of a beast, and you let yourself give way to the most primordial of instincts, that of survival. Your shackles block your access to your prey once again, and your stomach gurgles relentlessly, unsympathetic, while the imperative of Eating clouds that of any other feeling that was once human.

“ The gap between a perfect 100 mark and a 99 is not just one point,” she says, and her lips stretch over perfect teeth, piercing your soul. “Being second is just a consolation for the loser.” Fingers move with maddening slowness, flexing back and forth her victim's head pliant with terror as though it’s a doll. “As long as there's someone above them, they're nothing but a loser.”

The Hunger twists your innards and you drink every single one of her words, unsuspecting of the power they have on your soul. “What you are afraid of,” she goes on, and her voice resonates with the irreverent joy of dominance as she twists truths and lies as she so pleases, with a lover's tone, “Is the door of death in front of you.”

You inhale. Every muscle in your body freezes.

“ So I'll have you become that.” A pause, and the human cries pathetically. Your eyes stare into the discordant abyss of Eto's irises, dichotomy of her being. You get drunk on that illusion of power and you don't even feel the drool dry up on your exposed neck: vulnerable. Your blood pulsates in your veins, and in your ears there's a cacophony of drums that covers any other sound. “Once you're Death, Death is no longer scary.”

You foolishly believe her, because it's at you that she's staring with those eyes as she reaches down for her unworthy nutriment.

Inebriated laughter caresses your head in the most atrocious of tortures as her blasphemous and sensual lips consume the sweetest sin of flesh, closing themselves on the delicate skin of her meal and tearing at it. Blood tinges her entire figure but she doesn't seem to mind, smiling ecstatically as she disobeys Creation, glorifying her existence, her divine and destroyer’s nature, coating herself in that baptismal liquid and rejoicing in the corruption of that source of life made up of red blood cells and platelets. She laughs, aware that she's Death, mocking your hybrid and fallible existence. The sound of your madness stills for a moment,  _ sentencing you _ .

You feel the uncontrollable need to thank her, like an happy dog, as she throws your way the bones of someone who once was a human being. For an amazing and subconscious moment you don't feel second to anyone, let alone yourself. The Hunger steals that from you, too.

You hold in your violently trembling hands the bones of your victory, ecstatic, and your black lips stretch in the smile of your madness, before they draw near to them. You emulate the annihilation of your soul and it makes you happy.

“ Goodbye,” says Lokki.

The skull picked clean that you're kissing has the face of Takizawa Seidou, but not his flesh.

  
  


x.

 

In the silence of that night you wake up in a cold sweat, but you don't pay it any mind. The cranium of your father is still resting on your blasphemous lap as you cradle it with a mourning lullaby.

Goodbye, you reply, but Lokki is no longer there. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!  
> If you were able to decode all my awkward clues on symbolism, you really deserve an award \o/ If this fic is a jumbled mess it's purely on purpose. I originally wrote it as a fill in to a prompt that asked me to describe madness, so I tried to mix it with Takizawa's slow descent into morally grey territory. It had always fascinated me, how he'd let his inferiority complex completely rule him, to the point that he was willing to sacrifice it all of his beliefs. Well, with Eto as an enemy, it's not like I can really blame him.  
> Anyway, I tried my hand mixing reality with dreams in the first bit of the story, and with hallucinations in the second half. I had fun portraying Lokki as Takizawa's conscience, his puerile self, because it blurred the lines of his humanity (you know, with the fact that he's a dog.) But err, this thing is still an experiement. I'm not so sure that translating it was even that good of an idea, since it's probably still full of commas splices my eye glided over, so if you have any active criticism, don't hesitate to let me know what you thought of this fic! Even screaming at me is fine, as long as you're polite about it, LoL.  
> Anyway, you can find me on my [tumblr](http://bloodycarnations.tumblr.com/) for more angsty content.  
> Thanks again for reading.


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